Article March 20, 1915 Issue

I call your attention to House File No. 513 and Senate...

Henry Deutsch—Dawson, Minn.

Sentinel

I call your attention to House File No. 513 and Senate File No. 372, bills introduced into the Legislature, which would have the effect and result of depriving persons of the individual right to select the form of healing which they desire. The passage of this bill would exclude all practice but that of the regular medical or osteopathic schools, and would compel a man to accept that treatment or be a party to an illegal act if, after they had found his case hopeless, he should want to turn to Christian Science or some other form of healing.

It is needless to say that the bill is wholly unfair, unjust, and unreasonable, and would have as its tendency the establishment of a monopoly in the healing art. The bill assumes to license the art of healing upon the passing of the examination prescribed in subjects which are of use only to medical practice, and inasmuch as the board of examiners provided therein is composed entirely of one school of medicine, it can be readily seen that a person who was not desirous of practising medicine would stand no chance of passing their examination, however much qualified, for it would require a great stretch of imagination to believe that a board of medical examiners would give a license to a Christian Science practitioner, or to a chiropractor, etc.

In addition to this, the bill is a direct invasion of the constitutional right of Christian Scientists to practise their religion, as the result of which thousands of people have been restored to health and happiness whose cases had been pronounced incurable and hopeless by physicians. If this bill were a law, they would have been condemned to die because they could not be healed by the regular forms of practice. It is to be assumed that opposition to this bill will appeal to every fair-minded person, of whatever religious faith, as the American people are quick and sensitive to any attack on the underlying principle of religious freedom which is embodied in the Constitution of the United States and is the bulwark of our liberty. It would be just as bad to have state medicine as state religion.

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